Romney Presses Obama on Fast and Furious in Town Hall Debate

When Obama was asked what his administration has “done or plans to do to limit the availability of assault weapons,” Obama spoke of re-implementing the assault weapons ban, of “doing a much better job in terms of background checks,” and of getting weapons that were made for soldiers off the streets.

Gov. Romney then seized the moment:

advertisement

The greatest failure… with regards to gun violence… is what is known as Fast and Furious. Which was a program under this administration… where thousands of automatic and AK-47 type weapons were given to people who ultimately gave them to drug lords [in Mexico]. They then used those weapons against their own citizens and killed Americans with them.

An astonished Romney added: “This was a program of the government. For what purpose it was put in place, I can’t imagine. But it’s one of the great tragedies related to violence in our society which has occurred during this administration.”

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/ATF operation in which 2,500 hundred weapons were knowingly sold to people who couldn’t pass the background checks Obama says we need to do better job enforcing. Those guns were walked across the U.S./Mexico border and passed to cartel members and other criminal elements under the ubiquitous theory that our DOJ/ATF would trace the weapons, track down the cartel members who possessed them, and arrest the cartel members.

Only two of the 2,500 guns had tracking devices on them. And the great result of Fast and Furious was not an abundance of arrests but hundreds upon hundreds of deaths in Mexico, and the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry here at home.

Gov. Romney closed his time by asking why Obama won’t provide answers on Fast and Furious.